


Words

by ChettaDrabbles (KOranges)



Series: I Just Can't Find the Words [1]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And Steve Rogers is Like All of Them, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 22:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10999878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KOranges/pseuds/ChettaDrabbles
Summary: His brain didn't work right. The words he wanted to say when Steve looked at him died in his throat and made it hard for him to breathe. It wasn't that he didn't know what he wanted. He did. But "I want to take you to bed" always just came out as "bed" and Bucky knew that while the results were similar they were very much not the same.





	Words

**Author's Note:**

> Each of these drabbles are inspired by a prompt I received during an eight month long writing challenge. I'll only be sharing my favorites but every Tuesday & Thursday and I'll post a new one.
> 
> Prompt:  
> "Maybe it’s because I’m crazy,  
> Maybe it’s because I just can’t  
> Honestly tell you what I want"

He couldn’t speak. His words came out in jumbles and sometimes not at all. When his head ached and heart raced he couldn’t find the words that he needed to articulate why he was in so much pain. His words wouldn’t come out right. 

One time he accidentally mistook the words cucumber and condiment. Another time he stopped speaking mid sentence and only realized he hadn’t finished it when everyone continued to look at him expectantly. He was constantly saying words out loud that he had meant to keep in his head. It was so difficult to keep it all together. When the thunderstorm had him scared and screaming he couldn’t even tell Steve it was the flashes of light and not the crashes of thunder that terrified him. Steve hadn’t caught on until he’d buried his head in Steve’s sweatshirt in an attempt to block it all out. 

It wasn’t always bad. When it was daylight and he felt safe he and Tony had gotten in the habit of snarking at each other. They could go back and forth on puns for days. Steve had banned them both from mentioning fruit around him ever again. 

Other times, like right now, he was too emotional and even though he wasn’t scared he could feel the all too familiar pull of anxiety crushing his vocal chords. 

“Bed.” He could only get out the single word. Steve just nodded and they went to their room. 

It wasn’t that they had started sharing a bed immediately. But once he had started having trouble sleeping and night terrors Steve had unofficially moved in to help keep him calm. He had broken a few too many pieces of furniture to be left alone. Steve helped ease his anxiety usually and could calm him down before it got too bad. 

Recently it had been making it worse. He felt so much anxiety about going to bed knowing Steve would be with him that he struggled to form sentences for full hours beforehand. It was getting worse. He could feel his pulse skip and race to speeds he knew weren’t exactly healthy. He wondered if his heart could actually burst. 

He hated feeling crazy. 

It used to be that Steve made him feel sane. Their fingers interlocked seemed to anchor him to the ground and let his mind move a normal speed. The jumble of words could come out in the right order and the right way instead of all wrong or all at once. It was the biggest relief to bury himself into Steve’s side and finally be able to be himself. They’d spent hours curled up on the couch nearly tangled in each other and talking about the days before the war and Captain America. 

The shift had been gradual. One night he had looked up at Steve and the words died on his tongue. Steve had noticed but hadn’t said anything about it. The look in his eyes had been so raw and so intense it had stolen them right out of his mouth and they were gone. He knew what it was. He recognized desire even if it had been a few decades. 

He’d said ‘bed’ but meant ‘I want to take you to bed’. A few times he had let out a curse or two that had been the tail end of a silent prayer for Steve to read his mind and understand what it was that he wanted. The words choked him every time he tried to get them out. And Steve continued to lay next to him each night and emit so much heat that it felt like it was going to burn him alive. He was constantly cold and relished curling up next to the furnace that was Steve Roger’s super soldier metabolism. 

That night he woke up freezing cold and shivering. He had flashes of cold and ice that trapped him and kept him trapped beneath the water of the north pacific. His chest ached and he woke up gasping for breath in the darkness, cold and alone. He felt the emptiness of the room so sharply it felt like a knife between his ribs. Every shift in his movement hurt. His chest moved up and down but he didn’t feel like he could breathe. 

In his mind all he could think was that he was trapped. Logically he knew it was blankets but his emotional response was panic at being retrained alone an cold all over again. There was a mental chorus NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN that repeated itself and drowned out all of the logical parts of his brain. 

“Bucky, I’m right here.” Steve was suddenly pressed against his side, warm and comforting. There were hands holding him down to the bed and he realized he had been swinging wildly. He pretended not to see the bruise already forming on his cheek. 

“You were…not here.” He said through rough gulps of air. The word ‘gone’ eluded him for several more seconds. The details of the dreams were fading away just leaving him with the familiar feeling of panic and pain tinged with raw and jumpy nerves. Steve’s hands on his shoulders weren’t soothing him but causing him to tense up. 

“I was just outside. I was right there. I’m not going anywhere.” Steve mumbled assurances and kept trying to calm him down. He recognized that there was no reason to keep panicking but couldn’t get his own heart right to calm down. 

Belatedly he realized his heart rate wasn’t racing from the panic anymore. 

Steve’s cheek was pressed to his not for closeness but out of practical need to hold him down. They were evenly matched for strength it took all of Steve’s force to hold him to the bed. He went limp and Steve followed, leaving them both sweaty and tense tangled on the bed. Steve didn’t move off of him but adjust so that he had too large arms wrapped around him. 

“You ok, Buck?” Steve asked him. His mind had switched gears quickly and it took him a second to even realize why Steve was asking him that. He pressed his face into the soft space where Steve’s neck met his shoulder and murmured a soft sound of agreement. He wasn’t sure what words he would be able to get out just then. 

"Buck." Steve’s voice sounded weirdly anxious and he pulled back and looked up at him. 

“Steve.” He said back, Steve looked at him a little weirdly but then smiled sadly and rolled to the side. Bucky rolled with him. 

“Bucky.” Steve laughed at him. Bucky chuckled too but had no intentions of letting his personal heater go. He laid his head on Steve’s chest and listened to his heart beat. It was a little faster than most people’s on a good day, a side effect of the serum. 

This was happiness. This was what kept him going despite the panic attack and pain and general self-hatred. He could lay in this moment forever. Him and Steve.

That he wanted more was a give in. It was screaming on the inside of his head and it made his skin feel tingly and vaguely itchy. But the desire to move didn’t overpower the anxiety he felt about the consequences. He couldn’t vocalize to Steve that he wanted it. The man was right there and the words were on the tip of his tongue but instead they drifted back off into an uncomfortable sleep and dreams of reaching for something that was just a little too far away.


End file.
